How Not to Stimulate the Economy

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The Wall Street Journal reports that there’s been a sudden outbreak of Christmas cheer on Capitol Hill, and the chances of a government shutdown on Friday are now almost nil. There’s also — maybe — been an outbreak of remarkable good sense. The biggest obstacle in the way of a deal has been figuring out how to offset the cost of an extension of the payroll tax cut, and the Journal reports that several new possibilities are now under consideration, including this one:

Another option is for the measure to be only partly offset by revenues or spending cuts elsewhere—an approach that Democrats and the White House have said they could support.

Well huzzah. The whole point of the payroll tax cut is that it’s supposed to be a short-term economic stimulus, and the best way to accomplish that is not to pay for it at all. If you cut taxes one place and raise them another, that doesn’t have much net effect. Likewise, if you give people more money to spend but then offset it with less government spending, that doesn’t have much net effect either. If you want to stimulate the economy via fiscal policy, the best way to do it is via straight-up deficit spending.

Unfortunately, the Journal says that lawmakers are only considering a plan to “partly” offset the payroll tax cut with other revenues or spending cuts. Too bad. That’s better than nothing, but better still would be to forget about offsetting it at all and just pass the damn thing.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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